Her risque performance as the scheming Victorian prostitute Sugar in the hit costume drama The Crimson Petal And The White set viewers’ pulses racing.

But Romola Garai, who appeared topless and was depicted in several explicit love scenes in the BBC production, has described her body as ‘ordinary’ and says she doesn’t worry about how she looks.

In an interview for July’s edition of Tatler magazine, the 28-year-old actress said: ‘There are people who you see on screen and think, “Wow, that’s a slim person” and in the flesh they look nearly dead.

‘I want people to think I’m sexy, but to know also that I’ve got an ordinary body and not feel intimidated. I’d rather enjoy food, sex and all the joyful things in life than worry about how I look.’

The Crimson Petal And The White has been described as the most erotic costume drama for years, but Garai justified its racy content, saying: ‘There’s a lot of sex in it because Sugar’s a lady of the night.’

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But she admitted that filming some of the scenes was embarrassing.

She added: ‘Standing in pants and suspenders, waiting for someone to call “Action” is pretty cringey, but I’m insane so I keep doing it. By the end everyone on set was like, “Please, just put it away.” ’

In a photoshoot to accompany the Tatler interview, Garai looks far more glamorous. She is pictured aboard a double-decker bus dressed in a £7,000 Oscar de la Renta silk gown coupled with a bus driver’s cap.

Sexy: Garai appears as prostitute Sugar in the Crimson Petal, which has been described as one of the most erotic costume dramas in years

Hong Kong-born Garai, whose big-screen credits include Atonement, Glorious 39 and Amazing Grace, now has a string of television and film appearances lined up.

Most notably she will star opposite Dominic West, of acclaimed American crime show The Wire, in a BBC drama called The Hour. The six-part series charts the heady days of television news in the Fifties.

Garai plays Bel Rowley, an ambitious producer whose life is thrown into turmoil when she finds herself drawn to married news anchorman Hector Madden, played by West.